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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 October 2009
In 1915 officers of the United Mine Workers of America purchased forty acres of land north of the Ludlow, Colorado train depot on land where a tent colony had sheltered coal miners and their families during the 1913–1914 southern Colorado coal strike. Three years later, the union dedicated a memorial of Vermont granite on the site in memory of those who died there April 20, 1914, in the Ludlow Massacre.
1. The best account of the Ludlow strike and the massacre remains George S. McGovern's doctoral dissertation, “The Colorado Coal Strike, 1913–1914,” (Northwestern University PhD dissertation, 1953). For a description of the Trinidad field with a detailed account of the events that led to the massacre, see also McGovern, George S. and Guttridge, Leonard F., The Great Coal Field War (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1972)Google Scholar. Other superb accounts of the Colorado coal wars can be found in Long, Priscilla, Where the Sun Never Shines: A History of America's Bloody Coal Industry (New York: Paragon House, 1989)Google Scholar; Zinn, Howard, “The Colorado Coal Strike, 1913–14,” in Zinn, Howard, Frank, Dana and Kelley, Robin D.G., Three Strikes: Miners, Musicians, Salesgirls and the Fighting Spirit of Labor's Last Century (Boston: Beacon Press, 2001), 5–55Google Scholar; and Graham, John, “Introduction,” Upton Sinclair, The Coal War (Boulder, CO: Associated University Press, 1986), vi–xciiGoogle Scholar. The most recent books are Martelle, Scott, Blood Passion: The Ludlow Massacre and Class War in the American West (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2007)Google Scholar and Andrews, Thomas G., Killing for Coal: America's Deadliest Labor War (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008)Google Scholar, which places the events in the very broad context of environmental history. For a review of these two books, see Green, James, “Ludlow Re-Examined,” Dissent (Spring 2009), 94–97Google Scholar.
The names of the victims were sometimes reported with different spellings; many were taken from coroners' reports. Dead from gunshots the first day were: Primero Laresse, 18; Frank Snyder, 11; Louis Tikas, 30; James Filer, 43; John Bartolotti, 45; Charles Costa, 31; Albert Marin, 21 (militia man). Those who died in the cellar were: Patricia (or Patria or Petra) Valdez, 37; Eulalia Valdez, 8; Mary Valdez, 7; Elvira Valdez, 3 months; Rudolph Valdez, 9; Joe Petrucci, 4 1/2; Lucy Petrucci, 2 1/2; Frank Petrucci, 6 months; Rogerio (or Roderlo or Rodgerio) Pedregone, 6; Cloriva (or Gloria or Clovine) Pedregone, 4; Cedilano Costa, 27; Onafrio (or Oragio) Costa, 6; Lucy Costa, 4.
2. McGovern and Guttridge, The Great Coal Field War, 235, 239.
3. Adams, Graham Jr., Age of Industrial Violence, 1910–1915: The Activities and Findings of the United States Commission on Industrial Relations (New York: Columbia University Press, 1966), 160–61Google Scholar.
4. The sculpture is inventoried in the Save Outdoor Sculpture project of the Smithsonian. Save Outdoor Sculpture, Colorado survey, 1994; National Park Service, American Monuments and Outdoor Sculpture Database, CO0001, 1989; Monumental News, Oct. 1918, 451–452; Denver Post, May 15, 1918, 5. Hugh Sullivan designed the monument. The granite was quarried in Barre, Vermont; the fabricator was the Jones Brothers Co. There is a Granite Cutters International Association insignia on the monument. In the early 1900s, Italian anarchists and socialists came to Barre to cut stone and built an active labor culture. Holly Syrakkos of the AFL-CIO reported that “There is some speculation that the monument was in part a gesture of solidarity from the Italian and Scottish workers who formed the union… .” Holly Syrrakos, e-mail to Elizabeth Jameson, May 17, 2005. After the 2003 vandalism, the statues were repaired by Griswold and Associates, Beverly Hills, CA, using stone from the original quarry. Marcel Maechler carved the replacement stone. Denver Post, June 5, 2005; Rocky Mountain News, January 21, 2004, 5A.
5. This account is based on telephone interviews by Jim Green with Bob Butero on June 10 and September 5, 2003 and with Mike Romero on September 8, 2003. See Green, Jim, “Crime Against Memory at Ludlow,” Labor: Studies of Working Class History in the Americas 1 (2004), 3–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
6. Gary Cox, “Ludlow—Our Twin Towers-Beheaded.” Posted by Holly Syrrakos of the Inventory of Labor Landmarks on H-LABOR, June 12, 2003.
7. “Restore Ludlow Monument,” Denver Post, May 31, 2003.
8. Later on, a union activist, Richard Myers, set up a list for “historians, working folk, artists, labor activists interested in preserving the memory of the Ludlow Massacre” and in discussing issues related to restoring the monument: ludlow.com and to subscribe contact ludlowmassacre-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
9. E-mail communication from John Womack, H-LABOR, June 11, 2003.
10. Julie Greene, “Ludlow Massacre Memorial,” H-LABOR July 1, 2003.
11. Nora, Pierre, “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Memoire,” Representations 26 (1989), 8, 12CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
12. Green, Archie, “Labor Landmarks,” Labor's Heritage 6 (Spring 1995), 30Google Scholar.
13. Bodnar, John, Remaking America: Public Memory and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century (Princeton, 1992), 14Google Scholar.
14. National Landmarks Program, American Labor History Theme Study (Washington DC, 2003), 144Google Scholar. The study includes an introduction by James Green and area studies by Alan Derickson (extractive industries), Walter Licht (manufacturing industries), Majorie Murphy (white collar jobs) and Eric Arnesen (transportation). A pdf can be read at http://www.nps.gov/nhl/themes/themes.htm .
15. For sites already landmarked and a list of nine new ones nominated in 2003, see pp. 144–50 of the “American Labor History Theme Study.”
16. Hosmer, Charles B. Jr., Preservation Comes of Age: From Williamsburg to the National Trust, 1926–1949 (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1981), vol. I, 595–600Google Scholar.
17. For National Landmarks Program nomination criteria, see US Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register Bulletin: How to Prepare National Historic Landmark Nominations (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior, 1999), p. 11Google Scholar and quote from Bodnar, Remaking America, 170.
18. Green, James, Taking History to Heart: The Power of the Past in Building Social Movements (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2000), 17Google Scholar.
19. For the Colorado Coal Field War Project, including the Ludlow campsite archeological dig, see http://www.du.edu/anthro/ludlow.html.
20. E-mails from Elizabeth Jameson to Lysa Wegman-French, February 3, 2004; from Lysa Wegman-French to Elizabeth Jameson, February 10, 2004; from Lysa Wegman-French to Elizabeth Jameson, February 10, 2004.
21. Wegman-French sent the following materials to Jameson to share with the UMW: “The NHL Program: Common Questions and Answers”; “My Property is Important to America's Heritage: What Does that Mean?” She also sent, from the draft Labor Theme Study: “Marking Labor History on the National Landscape” by James Green and “Criteria for Historic Landmarks of Extractive Labor in the U.S.” by Alan Derickson, as well as the NHL Nomination guidelines.
22. The first such delay occurred when surgery sidelined Jameson during summer-fall 2004.
23. These discussions occurred in a conference call as summarized in minutes that Jameson recorded in an e-mail April 28, 2005 from Betsy Jameson to Alan Derickson, Anthony DeStefanis, Cammille Guerín-Gonzales, Lysa Wegman-French, Marty Blatt, Zaragosa Vargas, Randy McGuire, Holly Syrrakos, Bob Butero, Jonathan Rees, Jim Green, Julie Greene, and Tobias Higbie.
24. Pueblo Chieftan, June 6, 2005.
25. E-mail from Elizabeth Jameson to Alan Derickson, Anthony DeStefanis, Camille Guerín-Gonzales, Holly Syrakkos, Jonathan Rees, Zaragosa Vargas, Randall McGuire, Tobias Higbie, Marty Blatt, Jim Green, Julie Greene, Lysa Wegman-French, and Charles Haecker, July 15, 2005. Summarized from e-mails to Elizabeth Jameson from Alan Derickson, May 17, 2005; Camille Guerín-Gonzales, June 4, 2005; Jonathan Rees, May 27, 2005; Holly Syrrakos, May 17, 2005; Zaragosa Vargas, June 8, 2005; and Anthony DeStefanis May 25, 2008.
26. E-mail from Randall McGuire to Elizabeth Jameson, July 15, 2005.
27. E-mails from Lysa Wegman-French to Elizabeth Jameson, and from Elizabeth Jameson to Lysa Wegman-French, May 27, 2005; from Charles Haecker to Elizabeth Jameson and the Committee, and from Elizabeth Jameson to Charles Haecker May 31, 2005.
28. E-mail from Charles Haecker to Elizabeth Jameson, August 25, 2005. How to Prepare National Historic Landmark Nominations, 11.
29. E-mails from Charles Haecker to Elizabeth Jameson, November 29, 2005; January 20, 2006; January 23, 2006; March 9, 2006; March 10, 2006; e-mails from Elizabeth Jameson to Charles Haecker, January 20, 2006, March 9, 2006.
30. Elizabeth Jameson, “Remarks for the 2006 Annual Ludlow Commemoration.” Jameson based her account on sources cited in Note 1. Portions of her remarks appear in the NHL nomination.
31. Matthew Lee-Ashley, “Carbone e Potere: The 1903–1904 Coal Strike and the Origins of Corporate Hegemony in Southern Colorado” (B.A. thesis, Pomona College, 2004).
32. Haecker sent the draft nomination to Jameson on May 14, 2007; she circulated it electronically to the Committee members, who sent responses to her. She compiled the responses and sent them to the Simmonses and Haecker. E-mails from Charles Haecker to Elizabeth Jameson and from Elizabeth Jameson to Charles Haecker, July 10, 2007; e-mail, Elizabeth Jameson to Pam DiFatta, Matt Lee-Ashley, and John Rodriguez, October 21, 2007; e-mail from Charles Haecker to Elizabeth Jameson, January 16, 2008.
33. “Senator Salazar Vows to Help Make Ludlow Tent Colony Site a National Historic Landmark,” Press Release, January 23, 2008, http://salazar.senate.gov/news/releases/o80123ludlow.htm.
34. A Bill to Designate the Ludlow Massacre National Historic Landmark in the State of Colorado, and for other purposes, U.S. Senate, 119th Congress, 2d Session, read and referred to Committee on April 18, 2008; “Sen. Salazar Commemorates the 94th Ludlow Massacre Anniversary/Introduced Bill to Make Ludlow Site National Historic Landmark,” Press Release, U.S. Senator Ken Salazar, April 18, 2008; e-mail communications, Matt Lee-Ashley to Elizabeth Jameson April 18, 2008.
35. Press Release, Senator Ken Salazar, October 7, 2008; letter from Elizabeth Jameson to J. Paul Loether, Chief, National Register of Historic Places and National Historic Landmarks Program, October 22, 2008.
36. For a current discussion about the nature of public history, see “What Is Public History?” on the National Council on Public History web site, ncph.org. On shared authority, see Frisch, Michael, A Shared Authority: Essays on the Craft and Meaning of Oral and Public History (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990), xxiGoogle Scholar.
